Kodiak Fishcamp

Last week we returned from a summer adventure on Kodiak Island, where Emma, her 1 year-old son, Falcon the dog, and our mom Shelly got to visit a friend’s fishcamp in Olga Bay. Nina’s parents started set-netting there when they were young, raising Nina and her brothers on the water. Nina built her own cabin on the beach to live and fish from when she was in her 20’s and–now in her 70’s–has spent every summer there. I’ve visited many summer fishcamps in Alaska, and it’s hard to compare many to Nina’s; clawfoot tub, wind chimes around the outhouse, a greenhouse filled with flower starts and raingear, a wrap-around deck to take in the sweeping views of the green hills and bay, and a sweet kitchen where the stove keeps the kettle singing; it is without a doubt a very special place.

The salmon season was just starting when we arrived, and my mom and I took turns going out the pick the net with Nina during the first few openers. Our family set-netted near our homestead on the Alaska Peninsula when I was young, but moved onto a drift boat and then a seiner as I got older, so set-netting is the most unfamiliar to me. It’s pretty amazing that Nina takes on the fishing season solo out in her open skiff, but with her net visible from the kitchen window, she can watch salmon hit the net with a cup of coffee in hand and seemingly keep a good balance of work and summer pleasures–like rhubarb pie and potlucks with fishing friends.

What a thrill it is to see a salmon coming over the bow and to pick it out of the net with your hands! I’ve spent most of my life doing it, and still every season it feels more incredible. The salmon have returned again, to feed us, to nourish us, to remind us of our part in the natural cycle of things. And as fishermen, we get to witness their return, harvest them and pay our respects. Thank you, summer swimmers.

One day we geared up for a skiff ride from the cabin out to Moser Bay, past other set-net sites and cabins. We pulled up to the Moser Bay Cannery, a once-bustling piece of Alaska’s salmon fishing industry. Like so many of the original canneries in the state, the buildings and docks are no longer used or maintained and are starting to fall back into the sea. Nina told us stories of its heyday; a bustling place of many Mug Ups past.

Other highlights from fishcamp, and things that made me nostalgic for my childhood summers on our Western Alaska homestead, were laundry on the clothes line, salmonberry blossoms and brown bears on the hillsides, fresh bread and salmon lox for breakfast, king crab legs in the crab cooker, unloading totes and boxes of groceries from town up the beach and into the pantry, calm mornings on the deck and afternoon wind whipping up a chop on the water, the weather and the fishing schedule dictating the whole day’s plans, watching the tide change from the cabin window. On our last day we set our subsistence net to catch a few beautiful red salmon to fillet and take home in the cooler that came with us from Homer full of produce.

Our floatplane flight back to Kodiak town was breathtaking, way up high over the spine of the island’s still-snowy peaks. We spent a couple of days visiting friends, hiking trails near town and the beaches out the road near Pasagshak Bay. The wildflowers were blooming in the alpine and the waves crashed gently upon the shores of the green summer isle.

When we were kids, we would ride the M/V Tustumena to and from our summer fishcamp in False Pass, Alaska. I will always remember making the trip back up the chain towards Homer and waking up to the smell of trees on Kodiak Island after a summer of tundra and windswept hills further west. Such a sweet smell; Kodiak always has a special place in my heart. This was my son’s first ferry ride on the Trusty Tusty and chasing him around the deck, napping in the solarium and having breakfast in the galley felt like a special part of the summer migration I’m glad we got to share.

Back in Homer now, I’m feeling so grateful for the opportunity to visit and witness new places and fisheries, especially during these years when our kids are young and we’re not dedicated to our work in a single fishery for the summer season. I hope more fishcamp adventures are in our future, and to visit more of our fishing friends’ special summer spots and new wild places in Alaska.

📍Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) land & waters